Today's Tech News: Notable or Not?

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-04-redox-battery-energy-efficiency-longer.html "catalytic electrode: 2D MoS2 nanosheet enhanced with CO atoms/ sulfur vacancies... optimizes interface, boosts reactant absorption, speeds up kinetics of coupling between I-/I3- and S2-/Sx2-... running at 20 mA cm-2: 87.9% efficient... at 30 mA cm-2: peak power density 95.7 mW cm-2 with 76.5% energy efficiency, and running up to 50 cycles... at 10 mA cm-2: sustained stable operation at a 10% state of charge for up to 850 cycles... peak efficiencies can be restored by replacing electrolytes after running 200 and 600 cycles"

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079286 "overcomes chromatic dispersion/ image distortion... combines inverse-designed metasurface couplers with single-layer high-refractive-index waveguide... optimizing metasurface coupler geometry, and light's: phase, amplitude, polarization utilizing 4th, 5th, 6th diffraction orders handling R, G, B. wavelengths, ensuring uniform deflection angles/ eliminating chromatic aberration... expanded field of view through high-refractive-index design, and optimized coupling efficiency ensuring superior full-color display quality"

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-04-method-satellites-5g-era.html "overcomes not all satellites powerful enough to act as complete base stations... satellites to be integrated into mobile communications, even if their performance falls short, by splitting 5G base station in half, so satellites completely take over 5G network wireless communications minimizing computing power, energy, resource use... makes possible to distribute/ design functions/ tasks variably across different satellite orbits/ performance classes... 6G to integrate not only satellites, but also drones and aircraft"

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079359 "overcomes low thermal conductivity leading to overheating, by incorporating highly thermally conductive fillers: metals, ceramics, diamond/ graphite oxide... perfect fillers on their own 5X more thermally conductive than imperfect ones, but polymers with graphite oxide fillers containing defects performed 160% better due to enhanced vibrational couplings between polymers/ defective fillers at polymer/filler interfaces... high-performance microchips, soft robotics: cooler/ more efficient through improved heat dissipation"

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-04-welding-3d-complex-metals.html "multiple powdered metals deposited with micron-level resolution, laser melted together in single layer during additive deposition... 1 cm tall metal part includes thousands of layers of metal powder, taking a few hours to print... address pores/ cracks in real time viewing digital 3D rendering through CT scans... finished structure complex gyroid shape (which when multi-material can only be created using this method), used in applications such as heat exchangers/ biomedical implants... future: use with other types of metal powders"

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079126 "viscoelastic liquid/ elastic suppressing turbulence in simple flows (straight pipes/ channels), leading to reduced wall friction enhancing energy efficiency... exhibit relaxation time... closed-circuit water loop with 2D channel (20 mm height), 1:2 backward-facing step expansion ratio... turbulent eddies produce kinetic energy as flow attempts equilibrium, which relaxation time interacts with, leading to inertia-viscoelastic meandering motion... adjusting for high diffusivity state boosts heat transfer efficiency/ fluid mixing"

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079321 "ZnSe QDs alloyed with narrow-bandgap ZnTe forms green-emitting ZnSeTe QDs, free of toxic/ expensive phosphorus precursors, achieving spectral tuning... low-temperature balanced injection/ high-temperature growth method inserts ultra-thin ZnSeS alloy interlayer assisting thickened ZnS outer shell growth, alleviating lattice mismatch between ZnSe and ZnS, and thickened shell, passivating surface defects, enhancing radiative recombination efficiency/ optical stability... 20.6% peak external quantum efficiency" 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079323 "Shortwave IR eye-safe, less affected by atmospheric scattering... reliance on expensive/ toxic heavy-metals/ difficult manufacturing, overcome using silver nitrate coated colloidal quantum dot semiconducting silver telluride nanocrystals... measures distances >10 m with decimetre resolution... cost-effective, dark current density <500nA/cm2, external quantum efficiency 1400 nm of 30%, an LDR >150dB, time response 25 ns... LIDAR, space localization/ mapping, adverse weather imaging, environmental monitoring"

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-error-method-photon-requirements-quantum.html "error-correction requires 100s physical photons to make single reliable qubit... overcome by replacing part of required error correction, requiring far fewer photons, yielding more computing power... optical circuit with programmable light guides/ detectors switches filters out bad photons without having to know exactly what causes the errors, exploiting Schrödingers cat-like quantum light properties of light where measurement ultimately determines whether a photon has retained desired properties"

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079157 "overcomes challenges when magnetic fields change faster than material's response time... supercurrents in superconducting YBa₂Cu₃O₇ thin disc exposed to external magnetic field disrupted using fs-scale laser pulses to generate ultrafast magnet by switching any magnetic sample between stable unipolar magnetic states, producing ps-scale rise/ quenching super-ns-scale decay times... non-equilibrium matter states, magnetic memory with fast writing"

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-scientists-unveil-electrically-ultra-compact.html "all-electric (no magnetic) control overcomes unwanted interference between components... altermagnetic materials' electron spins point in opposite directions, cancelling large-scale magnetization, enabling fine-tuning... bilayer chromium sulfide's electrons naturally separate into layers with opposite spins... flipping electric switch reverses transported electrons' spin polarization up to 87%, selectively lifting energy levels of 1 layer over other, resulting in strong, tunable spin-polarized current"

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1078903 "microwave-optical quantum transducer plugs into fiber-optics connecting noise-sensitive microwave-optical quantum transducer computers... bridges microwave/ optical photons... controls superconducting qubits using only light... need for extremely low temperatures overcome using microwave qubits for quantum operations/ optical photons as interfaces... 2-mm optical device on 2 cm chip links microwave resonator with 2 optical resonators, allowing back-and-forth exchange enabled by lithium niobate... cables not bulky/ hot"'

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079064 "less bulky/ complex, no need to add energy... tailoring excitation form, not materials themselves, emulates system gain/ loss, unlocking perfect absorption or super-resolution imaging, surpassing passivity limitations in wave-matter interactions... accesses non-Hermitian responses... designing excitations with amplitudes that exponentially grow or decay engaging natural resonances/ anti-resonances... dynamic light control, signal absorption/ amplification, directional wave transport, enhanced quantum state control"

  https://www.israel21c.org/building-a-nuclear-reactor-the-size-of-a-desktop-computer/ "achieved ignition in plasmoids, now aims to build fully functioning prototype directly generating electric power within 3 years... solved core stability challenges... cost-effective, scalable... difficulties creating extreme temperatures/ pressures overcome using plasmoids, tangled bundles of super-hot charged gas (plasma) held together by magnetic fields... breakthrough is in generating new types of stable plasmoids that can effectively catalyze fusion via the quantum mechanical effect known as tunnelling" Grok's AI says:  "faces significant challenges: complexities in plasmoid stability/ materials, need funding beyond $2M used for achieving ignition, engineering/reg hurdles for home-use. small Israeli 3-person team/  ambitious timelines" Key Citations:   Metatron NRG Official Website, details on fusion technology ,  CTech Article on Metatron NRG, fusion claims and fund...

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079022 "Majorana zero modes theoretically immune to environmental disturbances causing qubit decoherence... imperfections in traditional materials addressed constructing 3-site Kitaev chain, stepping stone towards topological superconductors, using quantum dots coupled by superconducting segments in hybrid semiconductor-superconductor nanowires, allowing precise control of quantum states... more spatially separated, reducing their interactions exponentially enhancing stability... larger quantum-dot arrays"